Solarpiracy - SolarPiracy

Tribes Revive Traditional Hemp Economies

A post-petroleum transition plan.

“With 10,000 uses, hemp is one of the most versatile plants to grow—and in many ways can be a catalyst for change for Native peoples. We see a New Green Revolution in Indian Country, tied to justice, economics, restoration ecology, and a return-to-the-land movement, and it’s growing.

Just last year, the Fort Berthold Reservation, Colorado River tribes, Iowa Tribe (Kansas and Nebraska), Yurok, Sisseton and Santee Dakotas, to name a few, all got their hemp plans approved by the USDA, but more than that, tribal growers and thinkers are considering hemp as part of the future for Indian Country. And young leaders such as Muriel Young Bear, a Meskwaki woman from Iowa, and Marcus Grignon—a Menominee and project director at Hempstead Project HEART, a John Trudell initiative—represent a new wave of commitment.”

I am Lunē Greybridge, I live in occupied Seminole territory, and I have hit…. a wall.

https://www.gofundme.com/share/s/share-family-friends/lgs-land-back-justicehealingclimate-emergency

!PLEASE watch and share this video.!  I am doing the best I can and working very  hard but your help is absolutely needed right now. Transcript under the cut:

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not enough fireworks and champagne on the whole fuckin continent to celebrate this the way you're supposed to celebrate it

Blackness to me is inherently gender nonconforming largely because we will never fit into binary white supremacist notions of manhood and womanhood.

Vultures are holy creatures.

Tending the dead.

Bowing low.

Bared head.

Whispers to cold flesh,

“Your old name is not your king.

I rename you ‘Everything.’”

How to build a garden with no money

It's a relatively modern problem, where you, a scrappy solarpunk with no money, want to begin a vegetable garden. The ground you have to work with is either dead as hell or flat out toxic or has no dirt at all. You want to build a raised bed but you have no money and the kits are expensive. There's a lot of ways to go about this, here's what I did: I built a wicker basket.

Step one: assemble your branches.

You want whippy ones at least 4' long, no thicker than two fingers, no thinner than a chopstick. Longer and bendier is better, but also get a bunch of thick stiff ones. I got mine from the Greenway near my lil condo, and from my neighbor's yards.

Protips: Wear gloves, because thorns. Carry clippers discretely, because people get nervous when they see sharp shiny things in your pocket. The branches in the above pic are one load of three, because that's how much I could carry.

Step two: hammer your stakes

(no pic for this part, sorry)

Take the thickest and straightest of your branches, and cut a length you want to be the height of your box plus a couple inches extra. Hammer them into the ground every 18" or so, and at each corner. Every side of your box must have at least three stakes.

Protip: if the ground is really hard, drive a hole ahead of the stick by hammering in a screwdriver.

Step three: get weaving

First weave your biggest branches in and out between the stakes. You can remove any leaves for free compost at this point.

Protip: this is the hardest part, so don't get discouraged! Here is also where you will find out of the stakes are thick enough or hammered in deep enough. Try not to cry if they fall over. Or break.

Step four: keep weaving

Now you put in the smaller branches. I found that long vine types like ivy and wild rose can be woven in more than one direction, so if you need to fill in some gaps you can get creative.

Protip: tamp down the walls you've made every so often do they stay nice and dense. They need to be closely woven enough to hold dirt later.

Step five: smaller, different weaving

By now you have gotten down to the sticks that aren't quite long enough to go between the stakes. Make them into smaller stakes, ones that don't go into the ground but nonetheless weave vertically through your box walls. Hey, it's starting to look more like a box!

Protip: break off the ends of the stakes and your new vertical weave so they don't have out too much, and WEAR YOUR GLOVES, don't be an idiot like me and think you're safe because you don't have thorns to deal with.

Step six: fill it with dirt.

If you have any budget, use it all here. Get good, organic dirt, get your compost bin empty, and be extra careful taking dirt from elsewhere if you don't know exactly what has been leaking into it.

Protip: get more dirt than you think you need. Dirt is fluffy. The second you get water on it all the air goes away and you have a three inches deep garden box. In the unlikely event that you get more dirt than you need, use it for your houseplants or porch containers.

And that's it! Plant what you like! Use the seeds you've stolen from other gardens and the insides of your daily fruit! If you've bothered your nosy neighbor and they have alerted the HOA or your landlord, take this time to brush up on your various rights. If your neighbor dislikes you because they believe you to be a witch and a lesbian and idk, a long haired hippy or some other deeply outdated derogatory term, get those middle fingers up because you are going to help the bees and they aren't.

Green can be very punk.

my brothers share special interests and my favorite thing to do is walk in a room and be like "hey guys can you tell me about the mariana trench" and then sit there for an hour while they both infodump to me about the ocean it's extremely entertaining

Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

Welcome to Tuebl

Tuebl.ca is my new most favoritest site. 

for people who don’t know, Tuebl.ca is essentially a FREE AND AUTHORIZED ONLINE LIBRARY WHERE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FREE .EPUB VERSIONS OF POPULAR BOOKS.

When I say authorized, I mean popular authors PUT THEIR BOOKS UP THERE FOR FREE BECAUSE THEY KNOW EBOOKS WILL GET THEM NEW FANS WHO WILL THEN GO ON TO BUY THEIR  BOOKS.

I’m talking like John Grisham. Jacqueline Carey. Stephanie Meyers. Jeffrey Eugenides. FUCKING ANNA QUINDLEN. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

that’s just the start. seriously. try it out.

Writer: There Was Only One Bed…

Smut fans: *gasp!!!!!*

Writer: So They Spooned All Night And The Brooding One Allowed Themselves To Feel Vulnerable For The First Time In Years And The Chirpy One Got Some Quality Snuggles

Fluff fans: *GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*